Craig Levein knows how Damocles felt, except that Steven Fletcher is the
equivalent of the sword that hangs above the Scotland manager.

If the Scots’ World Cup campaign – which kicks off on Saturday against Serbia at Hampden – goes awry and the Sunderland striker continues to score while in exile from the national team, Levein is entirely aware that the blade will fall, sooner or later.

In fact, several players in the current squad have equalled or bettered Fletcher’s scoring ratio of one goal from eight appearances – namely Kenny Miller, Jordan Rhodes, Jamie Mackie, Ross McCormack, Robert Snodgrass and Steven Naismith – but if results are adverse, the absentee forward will assume an importance out of proportion to his contribution in a dark blue shirt.

So it is a considerable irony that if the Scots make headway in a very tough qualifying group, their cornerstone is likely to be Allan McGregor, who was brought in from the cold by Levein after being banned for indiscipline under George Burley.

Along with his then Rangers team mate, Barry Ferguson, McGregor took part in an all-night bender at the Scots’ training camp during a 2010 World Cup qualifying double header and then compounded his offence by flicking the Vicky, as they say in Glasgow, at photographers from the substitutes’ bench at Hampden.

When he succeeded Burley, Levein restored the errant player. on Thursday Alan Rough, from the viewpoint of a previous Scotland World Cup goalkeeper, declared that McGregor’s inclusion outweighed Fletcher’s absence.

“We’ve all been listening to the talk about strikers and who might play and who should play but everyone is missing the point – the goalkeeper is more important than the striker,” said Rough, who won 50 caps between 1976 and 1986. “We need to have our No 1 who makes the saves that wins games - as has been proved with Craig Gordon, Andy Goram and Jim Leighton.

“It’s becoming more apparent now because, while you see teams buying strikers for X-amount of millions, the goalkeepers are just the same. If you don’t have goalkeepers who can make that save you won’t win games. Every goalkeeper can make saves but when you’ve got who can make the big save at 0-0 or 1-1 then it makes the difference.

“Look at Petr Cech with Chelsea – he won the Champions League. It wasn’t Didier Drogba or a striker worth millions, it was Cech - and when you get into international football that’s the type of player you need. Allan has matured dramatically since the fiasco we had. Since his return he’s been a different person. You don’t see him in the front of the papers now, you see him on the back.

“He’s a different person now and he’s shown that on the park. He’s got a bit to go until he reaches his peak - Jim Leighton was playing international football at 38. I think this campaign could be the one that takes Allan to another level.

“He’s progressively gone up levels with Rangers and Scotland. When he came in he made some bad mistakes but the way he rode them and moved on to become one of the best goalkeepers we’ve had has impressed me.”

Should McGregor help see the Scots to the World Cup finals in Brazil in two years, it will not be before time for Rough. “The players, the fans, the folk at home and you guys in the media all need it – apart from the build-up, if you’re in the World Cup finals you’re all together for three or four weeks. You need spells like that to bond everybody.”

Certainly, Rough was one of the noted bonding agents on long Scotland assemblies, such as that witnessed by this correspondent in the World Cup play-offs of 1985, which took Alex Ferguson’s squad to Australia. At a civic reception in Melbourne, the squad was kept waiting for an hour by the Prime Minister of Victoria, but the players got revenge by swapping their name tags.

Which is why the Premier said to Gordon Strachan, who was wearing Rough’s tag: “Jeez, little fella, you’ve done well to be a top goalkeeper.” And why the politician departed, delighted with his cheery reception but unaware that the back of his suit jacket sported 24 name tags, deposited when the squad posed with him for pictures.

Well, there won’t be any shortage of backslapping for McGregor if he does help propel the Scots to Rio. Don’t imagine there’ll be a name tag for Fletcher, though.